steam can not see installed games

[Tormentor]

Hello!
I just launched the Steam app and it shows me that all my games have been uninstalled... I've tried following the directions from the Steam app and I still can't resolve this issue. I installed the games on D:\games\steamapps
every time I go into steam settings and try to select a library by adding my folder it shows me that my folder is not empty and I can't complete the action.
I can see my games in folder and I can see correct size in gb and if i click them steam app still ask me to install them.
Is there anything I can do to connect Steam to the game folder? I want to avoid reinstalling everything as it is quite a large collection of games.
Thank you for your answer

[Callahan420]

Is that an external drive or do you have Steam startup with windows?

Both can cause problems.

[Tormentor]

No, this is not an external drive. I use two built-in drives, an SSD (C:\) and a standard drive (D:\). The Steam app is on the SSD, but all my games are on the second drive. I'm using Windows 10, but I'm not using Steam Autolunch on Windows. I have tried to install Steam again but it doesn't sort problem.

[tintingaroo]

When you go to add your library choose the 'games' folder (don't choose 'steamapps').

[Pzvcho]

This happened to me like 5 minutes ago. Go to one of your uninstalled games, and click install, when it comes up with file location, click a folder you either use normally, or different (not external) if possible. I switched from C to D, and that worked for me, all my apps appeared as installed again. It's a steam glitch where it can't track where all your installed games are. they are still there, it's just about showing steam where to look. I think. Hope this helps.

[Tormentor]

Originally posted by tintingaroo:

When you go to add your library choose the 'games' folder (don't choose 'steamapps').

When I select the game folder, I see a different message: "There is already a library on this drive" and there is no action.

[tintingaroo]

Originally posted by Tormentor:

Originally posted by tintingaroo:

When you go to add your library choose the 'games' folder (don't choose 'steamapps').

When I select the game folder, I see a different message: "There is already a library on this drive" and there is no action.

In Storage, choose the drop-down and select the library on D: drive > Settings (the triple dots) > Remove Library. Then retry the add of the 'games' folder.

[Tormentor]

Originally posted by Pzvcho:

This happened to me like 5 minutes ago. Go to one of your uninstalled games, and click install, when it comes up with file location, click a folder you either use normally, or different (not external) if possible. I switched from C to D, and that worked for me, all my apps appeared as installed again. It's a steam glitch where it can't track where all your installed games are. they are still there, it's just about showing steam where to look. I think. Hope this helps.

When I install the game, I can only choose the automatic location to C or D with the newly created library. If I try to select a location for the game, I get a message saying that the selected library folder is not empty. Also every time I try to select a game location, Steam opens the settings and asks me where my game library is. And again I see this same message that Steam library folder is not empty

[Tormentor]

Originally posted by tintingaroo:

Originally posted by Tormentor:

When I select the game folder, I see a different message: "There is already a library on this drive" and there is no action.

In Storage, choose the drop-down and select the library on D: drive > Settings (the triple dots) > Remove Library. Then retry the add of the 'games' folder.

Thank you, this is the solution to my problem. It looks like you can only create one library folder on your disk. When I tried to sort the problem, I selected D:\ and Steam created a D:\steamlibrary folder and as you said, I had to delete it and select the games folder. I also had to select D:\games\ and Steam found my library. It seems obvious now. Thank you very much for your help

[tintingaroo]

Yeah, its just one library folder per drive if doing things via the Steam client.
If you ever end up wanting multiple libraries per drive, it's easy to do - steps are here: https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/4365752495731649458/#c4365752495732171425